We’ve given away the mess of pottage.
Now, I’m not exactly sure what a mess of pottage is.
But there was a story in the Bible about Esau giving it away.
And, if I remember the story right, it’s about giving away your birthright.
It’s about losing the only thing worth having.
And it feels to me that we’ve given away our magic. By which I mean, the unpredictable, spontaneous side of creativity.
And that’s a big deal, I reckon.
Look at a couple of sporting analogies. Recently the England cricket captain, Andrew Strauss, said why he thought the current Australian side was beat-able. "I don’t think this Australia side has an aura about it", he said.
We’ll get back to that “aura”, later.
From the world of football, I'm fond of quoting Andy Roxburgh, the director of UEFA. He talks about something very similar – about how football needs flair, but these days is being analysed to death.
And it's the same with advertising. Which used to be about a few talented individuals who drank and smoked too much, and who spent too long in the pub or down the bookies, but who created magic.
The only difference was that the footballers wore baggy shorts while the people I’m talking about usually didn’t.
But advertising, like football, has so much money in it, that it is now being analysed to death.
In any given project, I bet you that 80% of the allotted time is spent writing the brief.
And only between 10 and 20% given to the people who can really make a difference - the "creative" people.
Now those people CAN come from any area of the agency, but they’ll have a set of talents that set them apart.
Years ago, in his office overlooking Santa Monica, Lee Clow told me that he thought our industry should be about making a "leap" - from understanding to insight.
And that only a relatively small proportion of people in his agency could do that.
I couldn't agree more. Those "leaps" are what make marketing interesting. Frankly, without them, it's as dull as double-entry book-keeping.
And for those of you spend more time looking at porn sites than doing your accounts, trust me. That "double-entry" bit isn't as sexy as it sounds.
This is what Andy Roxburgh means about when he says that football needs more "code-breaker" players.
Players like Messi and Ronaldo, who are the most valued and most expensive players in the world - because they’re unpredictable. A master strategist like Mourinho can analyse every permutation of what his opponents might do - but someone like Ronaldo screws that up, because they do what they do without thinking about it.
They bring about game-changing "leaps".
To return to cricket, that's the aura Shane Warne had about him, and which the current Australian side don't have.
The sheer bloody hell-making of a maverick, high as a kite on the belief that they can do something nobody has done before, something everybody is telling them CAN'T be done, and which they’re gonna do or break their bones trying.
And our industry has a fair number of people who can do that. Code-breaker thinkers.
Years ago, Frank Lowe built the best agency the industry has ever known around this. He hired the best creative talent, and he cherished it.
At one point CDP was working for Fiat, but so highly regarded was the creativity in the agency that clients at other car companies would take CDP staff out for lunch and literally beg them to take their account.
Would that happen these days ?
No way, Mourinho.
What conclusions can we draw from all this ?
1. Napoleon once said that "no man is a hero to his valet". And Napoleon should know, because it was his valet who sold his (very small) penis to a museum after he died.
2. Bill Bernbach, my favourite adman of all time, said this.
“We spend so much time measuring public opinion that we forget that sometimes we can create it.”
3. All we know about Esau, from the Alan Bennett monologue, is that he was “a hairy man”.
Bring back the hairy man.
And give him a mess of pottage while you’re at it.
